Monday, January 10, 2005

A completed order

Amazon.ca sent me an email tonight letting me know that they've finally shipped the book I ordered last May! I'm so happy, I could dance!

Update:I couldn't find the original post where I talked about wanting to read this book. Still can't. I may have imagined it or posted it on the old blog or something. Eh.

The book that's taken over seven months to get here is The Value of X by Poppy Z. Brite. It's the book that comes before Liquor, which was her most recent book that I picked up in April. I was in Toronto on a training trip, and went into Indigo books to get something to read on the plane home, and found it in a book display. Then I fell into one of those Wayne-and-Garth-flashback-type moments....

.... A couple of summers ago (I think three - I'm pretty sure I was at the law library at the time), I was wandering through the stacks at one of the larger local libraries (St. Catharines). Her first novel she wrote, Lost Souls, caught my eye, having heard much about it from somewhere at some point - heaven only knows where. I'd heard she was a very "Goth" writer (more on this in a sec). So I grabbed it, and another she had written called Plastic Jesus.

(Ms. Brite is not one who appreciates being labeled as a writer of a particular genre, and is rather candid on this point. She's an excellent writer on whatever she chooses to write - she did write some horror-themed books, but she's also written things that have nothing to do with the subject, and it's just as good.)

Lost Souls squicked me out. I don't remember much about it, mostly because I was hurrying through the somewhat gory bits. It involves vampires and graphic descriptions and such. Reluctantly, I started reading Plastic Jesus - and ended up loving it. It was a sublime love story, and balanced out my reaction to Lost Souls.

(Another note: I wasn't squicked out by Drawing Blood. Actually, I quite liked it. And I haven't been able to get a hold of Exquisite Corpse because I keep getting sent the wrong book when I order it through interlibrary loan.)

So when I picked up Liquor, I was understandably reluctant to commit to it. Maybe I could wait and see if the library got it, or wait until I read a review or two or something. But I opened the book to a random page and got sucked in by a description of a dish being prepared, and decided I needed it. I read the whole book when I got home and loved it, not knowing it was a sequel to another book. Alas, The Value of X wasn't available at the library, and there is only one library in our interlibrary loan system that has it, so I decided to order it from Amazon.ca (it wasn't - and isn't - available through Chapters).

Unfortunately, there were a number of delays, and then more delays, and finally there was an email saying that the book wasn't really in stock, just on order, and that I'd have to wait. And wait. And wait some more. And finally get word that it was in.

Thus ends the saga of the open-ended Amazon.ca order that has finally been filled.